American television variety talk show
The Drew Barrymore Show is a first-run syndicated American talk show[3][4] hosted[5] by actress Drew Barrymore. The show is distributed by CBS Television Distribution[6][7] and debuted on September 14, 2020.[8][9][10]
Concept
The program's press release[11] stated that Drew Barrymore would present human-interest stories[12], celebrity guests, lifestyle segments and field pieces, all driven by her infectious brand of a humor and optimism.
Production
Barrymore shot a pilot for the show in New York back in August 2019[13], aiming for a fall 2020 launch. Barrymore had previously circled a talk show deal with Warner Bros.' Telepictures[14] in 2016, but a pilot never came to fruition, in part because of a lukewarm response from prospective station groups at the time.
According to Barrymore, a big part of the appeal of wanting to host a talk show was that it would allow her to maintain a reasonable lifestyle as the mother of two young girls — ages 6 and 8 — in contrast to working on a film set where it’s not unusual for actors to work “4 a.m. to 11 p.m.”. Barrymore also said of The Drew Barrymore Show “I’m in the joy business. I don’t carry the umbrella of darkness with me. I didn’t want to let go of everything I’ve done and who I was. I wanted to make a new application of all that in a way that better served me schedule-wise.”
Barrymore debuted several digital series[15] in the lead-up to her broadcast debut that included “The Making of the Drew Barrymore Show”[16] and conversations with talk-show hosts who have inspired her in “The Art of the Interview.”[17] Barrymore also launched “Drew's Movie Nite”, in which she would invite fans to join her in a live Twitter watch party. The series kicked off on July 30, 2020 with the Nickelodeon broadcast of the 1997 film Good Burger[18]. Also featured was Barrymore's interview with the stars of Good Burger, Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson.
The next edition of “Drew's Movie Nite” was the Nickelodeon broadcast of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water[19] from 2015 on September 3, 2020. This time, Barrymore interviewed the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, Tom Kenny and the voice of Patrick Star, Bill Fagerbakke. The third edition of “Drew's Movie Nite”, this time aired on CBS on October 25, 2020, and was the 1996 film Scream[20] starring Barrymore.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the show upon its fall 2020 launch took place with a small crew at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, with pandemic-related rules and precautions. Instead of an in-person audience, members of a virtual crowd would be beamed in via a platform called Audience From Anywhere and projected on a large display behind Barrymore. Meanwhile, guests who live on the West Coast have the option to appear via green-screen and sit across from the host, hologram-style[21]. Barrymore said “I think the limitations of the pandemic made us a more modern show. When forced to think differently, we tried to turn every obstacle into an opportunity.”
Episodes
The debut episode featured guest appearances[22] by Barrymore's former co-stars Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Adam Sandler.
The September 25, 2020 episode featured Barrymore reuniting[23] with her ex-husband Tom Green after having not spoken to each other in over 15 years[24]. The two reminisced on their time together and years apart, which made Barrymore cry after she realized how much time had passed.
The October 12, 2020 episode featured Barrymore interviewing Chloe Fineman[25] following Fineman's impersonation of Barrymore on the October 3, 2020 edition of Saturday Night Live. Barrymore said to the second-year SNL player "I’m really nervous to meet you, I’m so excited, I’m such a fan," for which Fineman responded by saying “I’m your biggest fan, you’re gonna make me cry!" Fineman added: “I mean doing you was so exciting because you were on the cover of InStyle and the impression that I did this summer started because I really wanted that shirt. It was so cute.”
Also on October 12, Barrymore interviewed actress Jessica Alba[26], for whom Barrymore co-starred with in the 1999 film Never Been Kissed. Besides reminiscing[27] about their time filming Never Been Kissed, Barrymore and Alba danced together as they took on TikTok's "Ahi Challenge"[28].
On the October 16, 2020 episode, Barrymore invited psychic Anna Raimondi[29] to give her a reading. Raimondi said that she sensed the presence of a "judge". This revelation revelation caused Barrymore to burst into tears, explaining that it must be David, the dead relative of her ex-husband Will Kopelman who was a judge. But according to Kopelman, that judge in question at the time of the episode's airing, was very much alive. Kopelman soon called Raimondi a “submental hack[30] working the talk show circuit.” A representative for Barrymore later clarified, “The grandfather of Will is Frank, who was a judge and is deceased. David is…Will’s uncle, who’s alive and also a judge. That was the confusion.”
Broadcast
The CBS Television Stations group was on board to anchor the launch of The Drew Barrymore Show, including on KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and WCBS-TV in New York City. Overall, the show had been cleared to launch on stations representing 85%[31] of U.S. TV households[32]. In Canada, Global[33] announced on August 18, 2020, that they would pick up The Drew Barrymore Show prior to its September 14[34] launch.
Reception
The premiere episode on September 14, 2020 was a real emotional roller coaster[35] according to Jezebel's Rich Juzwiak. He added "The enthusiasm was massive, the veracity was questionable, the performance was distracting. She shifted gears in the next paragraph of her monologue to reintroduce herself, remind us that she is exactly who we think she is, and suggest that she’s so much more. With the impassioned face of a celebrity raising funds on a telethon, Barrymore said emphatically that, 'I’m also someone who is learning all the time, and I’m so excited to figure out this thing called life with you!' Wait, that’s what we’re doing here? Then she started shouting that, 'We’re gonna learn! Laugh! Cry! Cook! Heal! ALL OF IT!' Well, paint that on a piece of wood and hang it in your country kitchen. 'And I’m committed to putting all aspects of life into this show every day,' she continued. It’s only an hourlong show?" Juzwiak also said[36] that Barrymore has been a nonstop ball of energy, which can be exhausting and endearing.
Meanwhile, Variety's Daniel D'Addario said[37] that "The best talk show hosts are made into stars by the medium. To wit: Rosie O'Donnell was a well-known comic and actor but hardly the dynamo she eventually became when she began her daily show. She reinvented the medium that had, before her, been dominated by former local news anchor Oprah Winfrey. Both these stars did not bring to bear huge amounts of persona that was already known to the audience, so they had to work to carry across an idea of themself with each episode and segment. At their best, you walked away from their shows knowing O’Donnell and Winfrey in a way you might not otherwise have, before. Drew Barrymore, a newly-minted talk show host with her Drew Barrymore Show carried in daytime by CBS stations, has less of herself to introduce, and, more crucially, less apparent desire to do so."
D'Addario added that Barrymore was hampered in her first week by her reliance on celebrity friends, saying "Barrymore’s show is squarely in her comfort zone, and as such is in the comfort zone of any celebrity; it’s so soft and unthreatening, though, as to often make us feel we know subjects and interviewer both less well when the interview is done. We hardly need a Mike Wallace-style expose on the stars Barrymore books; that’d be weird in daytime, and it’s not what viewers look to Barrymore for. But — speaking as a Barrymore fan who was excited to see her in conversation — there is as yet untapped potential for her to dig deeper, to show us more of what she really believes or finds important."
William Hughes of The A.V. Club said[38] that there have been two major takeaways from The Drew Barrymore Show after one week: "Drew Barrymore definitely has a lot of cool, famous friends, and Drew Barrymore sometimes acts in ways that are tremendously weird when asked to talk into a camera by herself. The combination has formed some of the most hypnotically, authentically strange TV the internet has had a chance to dine out on in a while, as Barrymore jumps between recreating famous movies she’s made with her buddies, to monologuing, for minutes at a time, about her love of removing stains from T-shirts."
Tracy Moore of Vanity Fair said[39] that it's remarkable that "something so offbeat is happening on daytime at all" of the "low-key insanity" of The Drew Barrymore Show. Moore also said of Barrymore "She cooks; she interior designs; she feels. She talks in hashtags, and casually drops quotes from Gayle King, Patti Smith, and e.e. cummings. She is, it seems, genuinely in awe of everyone and everything, a self-described 'human scrapbook of news,' a 'pop culture junkie,' a lover of people and stain removal."
Ratings
In its second week, The Drew Barrymore Show was down 14%, grabbing only 600,000 viewers[40]. Hot Bench, the show which The Drew Barrymore Show replaced many markets, was steady at 1.7 million.
